Various types of dispensers exist for releasing vaporizable material into the surrounding environment. These dispensers are commonly used to dispense materials such as deodorants, room fresheners, or insecticides.
The known dispensers do not provide any type of definitive indication when the contents have been totally expended. Consequently, it is not uncommon for an empty dispenser to go unnoticed for a long period of time.
Thus, users of the known dispensers have had to rely on rough estimates when to replace the vaporizable material. This can result in a large time lag between the time when the material has actually been expended until the time that this fact is discovered by the user, or in premature replacement.
The present invention provides a dispenser adapted to release vaporizable material into the ambient environment which provides an immediate and unambiguous visual indication that the quantity of the material to be dispensed has fallen below a predetermined level and is nearly or totally expended. The dispenser is designed so that it is capable of standing upright in a vertical position on a base only when the weight of its contents is above a predetermined value. However, the center of gravity of the contents and the dispenser shifts so that the dispenser is unstable in its vertical upright position when the weight of its contents is below the predetermined value. The unstable dispenser falls to its side, and the fallen container provides a user with an unmistakable visual indication, at a glance, that the contents within the container have been depleted or are close to depletion, thus requiring replacement.